WASHINGTON, DC—MAY 5, 2017—The US Senate passed a bipartisan budget bill Thursday night, several days after the House of Representatives passed the same bill, largely unchanged from the original budget agreement reached between Republicans and Democrats on Sunday night.

Passage of the bill allows the government to avoid a shutdown prior to a Friday deadline. Both houses of Congress approved the budget bill that allows for an increase in the number of nonagricultural visas issued this fiscal year, a provision considered important to the horse racing industry.

The current cap on nonresident, nonagricultural visas is 66,000, a number reached early this year, according to the American Horse Council, a Washington-based organization.

The new bill allows that cap to rise to 130,000 visas at the approval of the secretary of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor, depending on an industry’s economic need.

The budget bill covers the rest of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Racing lobbyists are expected to push for a permanent increase in the cap during the next budget negotiations.